The 2025 Players Championship: Core Plays, Bets, Lineup Process, Value Plays, and Player Pool)
- 925 Sports
- Mar 11
- 13 min read
The 2025 Players Championship is shaping up to be an exciting event, and this preview breaks it all down. It highlights the core plays—standout golfers you can rely on—and dives into the best betting options for the tournament. The lineup process offers a clear guide to building a competitive roster, while value plays spotlight underrated players who could deliver big returns. Rounding it out, the player pool provides a comprehensive look at the field, helping you make informed decisions for one of golf’s biggest stages. Whether you’re a casual fan or a serious bettor, this preview has everything you need to get ready for the action.
Breaking down my step-by-step process to give you the top picks, plays and bets for this weeks tournament.
Betting Units Profit in 2025: 120.7
Weeks Cashed in DFS: 6/9 = 66% (1 push)
H2H Bets: 49/68 | 26
3-Ball: 65/130 | 34.4
FRL: 7/61 | 48.1
Outrights: 1/66 | -15
Prop Sites: 46/64 | 26.7
2024 Outright Winners 14 = 144 Units Won
*Please note I always publish the rough draft version of this write-up, and then come back and edit it / correct it later that day. If there are grammatical errors that is why.
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SLATE CONFIDENCE RATING: Yellow:
Slate confidence rating is a way of looking at the slate in terms of predictability. Red will be a week in which I am reducing my units bet. Typically this will mean entering the same amount of lineups but in a contest where the entry $ amount is less. A Yellow week is a standard week. Green is a week that appears to be very easy to predict, these are weeks in which we typically have a full field event that is loaded. (Majors) thus it should be very easy to make a good profitable lineup. **Note for betting my strategy does not change per week.
Typically speaking The Players Championship is a week in which we get a lot of free squares making the lineup process extremely easy and make it a week in which why typically attack heavily.
That is not the week that we have this week, the pricing was very well done this week, although you can make a lot of great lineups I do not view a single golfer as a LOCK AND LOAD MUST PLAY given their price. I am hoping that this will actually be the edge this week. You can make any lineup process you want work this week. We have plenty of safe golfers to make a good fair and balanced build, we have some sub 6K golfers that make for good made cut options that can lead us to loading up on a lot of studs.
The struggle this week is because the pricing is good we do not really have a direct lineup process, it is spread out. I will show you this lineups at the end of this write-up.
One crazy thing this week is that we only have 1 "Good" Outright Bet, and we have 0 Core Plays. That should speak volumes to the somewhat random week we could end up seeing this week.
KEY STATS:
*Based off of which key stats led to golfers winning but also making the cut in previous years at the course tournament. I look for which one or two Strokes Gained stats matter the most. Look to see whether this is a wedge fest or a long iron event. (175-125 stats don't really matter in terms of predicting who will play well in a given week) Find out which scoring stat matters the most (BOB, B2B, or BA). Find if this is a course in which accuracy or distance matters the most.
Effective Birdie To Bogey Ratio (EB2B) Key Stat 1 - Combination Stat for Bogey Avoidance and Birdie to Bogey Ratio.
Good Drive Percentage (GD %) Key Stat 2
Strokes Gained Off the Tee (SGOT) Key Stat 3
Par 5 Scoring (Par 5) Key Stat 4
Strokes Gained Approach (SG AP) Key Stat 5
This course is very much set up to reward golfers that are playing well and penalize golfers that are not. Targeting golfers that are finding the fairway, leads to them not making mean mistakes which leads to them making the cut. Golfers that excel are golfers that are gaining strokes off the tee, and are the golfers that are scoring on the par 5s.
Course History:
Going forward Course History for an event with go by H1, H2, H3, and H4. For most weeks that will simply be 2023, 2022, 2021, and 2020 course history. (Last 4 years is course history is when the data is the most significant)
Last 4 years course history.
Golfers that due have course experience, and good course experience are the golfers that tend to play the best here. Now if a golfer is not on their game they won't play well but course history does play a bigger factor here this week.
Weather:
Per PGA Tour website - tournament page - Course Stats - Weather
Right now the weather on Friday looks like it could play a big role in deciding which golfers are the best plays. That is subject to change though, the weather earlier in the week really only showed Saturday as a bad day. That is still mostly the case, as the weather on Friday does creep up to be extremely windy later in the evening, so it most likely per the weather report will not play a factor in the cut sweat but again that could change. Thursday AM tee times do get a little advantage, and on Saturday we will be wanting to target good "bad" weather specialists. That will be more for showdown and betting purposes though.
BETTING PICKS:
First Round Leader
I will be targeting AM Tee Times that rank out top 5% for FRL betting using the NineToFive betting sheet until further notice (basically if weather tells us not to)
Justin Thomas 35/1 - DK/FD
Russell Henley 50/1 - DK/FD
Hideki Matsuyama 45/1 - Most Books
Shane Lowry 50/1 - Most Books
Sepp Straka 60/1 - DK/FD
Will Zalatoris 70/1 - Most Books
I will also be betting on Nicolai Hojgaard who is at 125/1 on Bovada, I just think that number is too good. He is one of the best stat fits in the field, he is top 20 in recent form rank, has made a start at this tournament last year gaining experience, and he also ranks top 5 in early rd1 scoring. Worth a look.
Round 1 - 3-Ball Bets
Available by clicking on either the Ownership Leverage, or Props page on NineToFive, then click on the 3 person Icon. I will typically only bet on golfers that have a 40% likelihood to win or type their group. Those will be highlighted in the PGA Tour Betting Sheet - Click on 3 Ball Bets
Adam Svennson - 2.72 + Luke List 4.08 (betting against Chris Kirk)
Jake Knapp - 3.95
Jhonattan Vegas - 3.32
Max Greyserman - 3.09
Matchup Tournament Bets:
Best matchup bet for the week.
More will be highlighted in the PGA Tour Betting Sheet - Betting Page Dropdown - Matchup Bets You can also find the best matchup bets per round here as well.
Tommy Fleetwood +135 to beat Collin Morikawa DK
Nick Taylor -105 to beat Davis Thompson DK
Ben Griffin -110 to beat Doug Ghim DK
Justin Thomas +100 to beat Ludvig Aberg DK
More Bets found: Ninetofive Betting Sheet
Matchup Tournament Bets:
2023 Recap = 12 Outright Winners = 144 Units of Profit (Wyndham Clark winning at +100/1 Odds at Pebble carried)
Picture 1 = Golfers that are the statistical best Outright Bets. This is determined by looking at which data points were the most predictable in regards to players that won the past two seasons. These golfers meet at least 80% or more of the statistical thresholds used to determine winners.
I am happy to get to Morikawa besides his lackluster Course History he is an elite option, last week he had bad course history and nearly won that event, and least here he has shown some upside.
Bets:
Collin Morikawa 14/1 Most Books
Hideki 33/1 FanDuel
Tommy Fleetwood 30/1 FanDuel
Shane Lowry 40/1 Most Books
Sepp Straka 50/1 FanDuel (Down from 60/1)
Alex Smalley to Top 20 at 4.5/1 Most Books
Data Tag: Core Plays
Golfers that are the most likely to make the cut, and meet or out produce their price tag. To be a Core Play golfers need to be coming in "Checking All the Boxes"
We have 0 golfers that are checking all the boxes this week 0. I actually do not recall a week over the past year where this has been the case for a normal event. (Not a secondary/alternative event). Now I will be getting to golfers as Core Plays but it is crazy that we are not getting one this week on paper.
Data Tag: High Exposure
Players that have one knock: whether that be course history, recent form, stat fit, safety, upside or price. (*This is based off of the the NineToFive Data Tag, which accurately marks a slight flaw in a great play thus why they would only be high exposure plays)
Now using the picture above it is pretty easy to see why we have 0 Core Plays this week. Scottie has a missed cut at this event over the last 4 years, and a 55th place finish 3 years ago. We can overlook those starts here since he was able to win here the last two years.
Collin Morikawa missed the cut at this event 3 years ago and only has one top 15 place finish here over the past 4 years. Obviously that is the biggest concern with him this week.
Hideki also has a missed cut here in the last 4 years and he also struggle with Good Drive % and Strokes Gained OT. Maybe he will be able to club down a bit and find the fairway more here.
Tommy Fleetwood also has a missed cut at this event 4 years ago, but I think we can somewhat ignore that as well since he has made the cut here the last 3 years.
Daniel Berger is close to being a Core Play, but is getting knocked due to his 42nd rank in recent form. Although his starts in the 2025 season have been great. I do think that he is properly tagged this week as a High Exposure Play.
Russell Henley has two missed cuts here, but he also has 2 top 20s as well. He is in elite form and is the 3rd best Specialist in the field. I think he will be poised to play well again this week. I was tempted to take him outright again this week, but it felt like I was forcing that.
Shane Lowry is getting knocked for not being a good stat fit, and that is his biggest flaw this week, but he still ranks out top 35 as a stat fit. He also has played extremely well on this track in the past with 4 straight made cuts and all of them being top 35 or better finishes.
Aaron Rai is also getting knocked for his recent form only ranking out 34th. He is a great play on paper this week though. I see him more as a mid exposure play that we will be going out of our way to target because of his price.
Data Tag: Mid Exposure
Players that are still good plays but have more than one flaw to them as a play this week. This could be due to recent form, stat fit, course history, injury uncertainly or just due to the fact that their are better plays around their price tag.
Rory is very much hit or miss, and he tends to hit a few too many poor drives to excel at this event over the recent starts here. All it takes for Rory to dominate this week is a spike week in driving accuracy, and hey I hear he has a new 3-Wood that he can hit over 300 yards. Seems like the perfect week for Rory to leave the Driver in the bag and find some fairways. We should be getting to Rory in GPPs.
I do think it is worth calling out with Aberg that his data might be a little skewed due to him playing through an injury 4 events ago. If you take that away he would probably pop much more. I do think he is a bit overpriced, but also could see him winning this week. I probably will be getting to him less than what the data is telling us.
Justin Thomas has been so hit or miss this year, I think the Mid Exposure Tag is perfect for him. You can't overly trust that he will payoff his price tag, but at the same time he could win an we don't want to miss out on that.
Patrick Cantlay has been annoying this season, and at this tournament. You would think this would be a good track for him yet he has one top 20 finish here over the past 4 years. He is another golfer that has been hit or miss.
Will Zalatoris I do think of as more of a Shoulder Shrug play this week. I guess that works for him being a mid exposure play, but I will not be getting to him this much. I have closed out a few builds with him though.
Sepp Straka is one of the more easy clicks given his price, although he is a little risky. He missed the cut on the number 3 starts ago but in between that missed cut he has a 5th, 11th, and 15th place finish. He is the second best stat fit in the field. Meaning that if he shows up and isn't having an off week he should be a great play.
I probably won't be on Macintyre like the data is suggesting.
Si Woo Kim is a golfer that I have tried to get to more and more as the week has progressed. He has great course history here. If you take away a WD he has a 6th, 27th, and a 9th place finish at this track over the last 4 years. He also is a former winner at this event. He has made 4 straight cuts in a row on the PGA Tour all being top 25 or better finishes, and he ranks out as a Top 20 stat fit. I really like Si Woo this week and I really like his cheap price.
Jason Day, Denny McCarthy, and Nick Taylor are all golfers that you target because you think you're getting a cheap(ish) made cut, and anything else on top (top 10, top 20) is the cherry.
EVERYONE is liking Michael Kim this week and it makes a ton of sense, first his price is terrible. Second he is the 4th best stat fit in the field, and third he has great form making 5 straight cuts and two top 10 finishes over his past 2 starts. The concern is that he only ranks out 58th in Specialist rank, and that might point to why he struggled at this event last year. He is coming in slightly over-owned at around 15% as I am writing this. He is probably the best sub 6K play that we have but we also have PLENTLY of great pivots.
Data Tag: Low Exposure
Risk/Reward Plays, Plays to get a made cut, Shoulder Shrug Plays, or Fomo Plays
I will not be covering every golfer in this section but highlighting some.
First let's talk about all the Michael Kim Pivots. Jake Knapp is a slightly worse version of Michael Kim, less recent upside, not as good of a stat fit, but he did make the cut at this event last year.
Nicoli Hojgaard is one of the best stat fits in the field ranking 3rd this week. He has great form as well ranking out top 20 in the field. He made at stat at this event last year also missing the cut. Still a great pivot.
Alex Smalley is proably the most obvious pivot which is why the PGA Tour paired these two together for the first two rounds. Smalley is a top 10 stat fit ranking out top 10 or better in the top 4 key stats. He has also made 3 straight cuts on the PGA Tour going 18th, 10th, and 21st. He also has poor course history though.
Other potential pivot would be Andrew Putnam who made the cut at this event last year, and has made 4 straight cuts on tour. He is someone that should give us a good chance at a made cut. Then we have Chan Kim, Vegas is giving Chan Kim a 52% chance to make the cut at we can get him at $5,000. Insane!!! He did make the cut at this event last year as well.
Now let's get into Xander, and it is sad guys but I am still not going to be getting to Xander this week. He needs to show it to me for at least 2 rounds before I can fully trust him. It seems pretty clear that he is shaking off the rust.
Really all the Low Exposure priced up golfers I do not feel the need to get to. Could they pop, sure but it's not as likely as some of the other golfer we are already on.
From Keegan Bradley on down I am fine with all of those play as Low Exposure Plays.
Other plays I like: Corey Conners, Lauri Canter, Doug Ghim, Kevin Roy, and Taylor Moore.
Player Pool
Player Pool is rank in order of how I am prioritizing a golfer as a play this week. (This is based off of 20 entry max lineups. For 150 entry lineups I will open up the player pool slightly more but this will be determined by the lineup optimizer)
CASH AND GPP PLAYS:
(Finalized on Tuesday Member Write-up)
Cash Play: Highest Likelihood to make the cut.
GPP Play: Reduced Likelihood to make the cut, but if they do they have a high likelihood to exceed their salary.
Cash
Lowry, Hideki, Si Woo Kim, Fleetwood, McCarthy, Rai
GPP
Justin Thomas, Aberg, Zalatoris, Conners, Keegan
Sample Lineup
*This is a sample lineup for you to use as a reference tool. This is typically the first look lineup that I get onto for the week. Most of the time my main lineup will be adjusted throughout the week as I do a deeper dive.
Fair and Balanced:
Studs and Duds:
Optimal (Based on Highest Upside): This is also a chalky build this week apparently.
From the NineToFiveSports.Com PGA DFS Lineup Builder
Projected Ownership / Ownership Leverage
Projected ownership for that weeks golf tournament, Tag to call out if they are over-valued or under-valued. What position they are being valued at given their ownership at their price.
As you would expect from a golfer that is priced the way that Michael Kim is with all the hype he is getting he is coming in slightly over-valued this week. I have already mentioned a lot of his pivots but they are all getting some love as well. I am a big surprised to see Andrew Putnam, and Jake Knapp getting more love. Maybe they are the pivots of the pivots.
Again this week I will be staying away from Xander I get why the data is telling us he is a great leverage play. Vegas is giving him some of the best odds, and he still projects well but I view him as a GPP only play.
I will say I am very shocked at the ownerships for Shane Lowry and Russell Henley, when you compare them to Ludvig Aberg who is starting to get too high-valued I can see gaining leverage with those two off of Aberg.
Alright, that is all for the week, hope you enjoyed the write-up. If you're a NineToFive Member I will see you in the Discord. If you're not a NineToFive Member, think about becoming one! The NineToFive Membership is only $10 a month, which will give you access to all the tools available on the site.
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